This statistic depicts the average body mass index (BMI) of U.S. adults aged 20 years and over as of 2016, by gender. According to the data, the average male BMI has increased from 27.8 in 1999-2000 to 29.1 as of 2015-2016.

This statistic depicts the average body mass index (BMI) of U.S. females aged 20 years and over from 1999 to 2016, by ethnicity. According to the data, the average female BMI for those that identified as white was 27.6 in 1999-2000 and increased to 29.1 as of 2015-2016.

This statistic depicts the average body mass index (BMI) of U.S. females aged 20 years and over from 1999 to 2016, by age. According to the data, the average female BMI for those aged 40-59 years was 29 in 1999-2000 and increased to 30.4 as of 2015-2016.

Surveys in which U.S. adults report their current weight have shown that the share of those reporting they weigh 200 pounds or more has increased over the past few decades. In 2024, around 28 percent of respondents reported their weight as 200 pounds or more, compared to 15 percent in 1990. However, the same surveys show the share of respondents who report they are overweight has decreased compared to figures from 1990. What percentage of the U.S. population is obese? Obesity is an increasing problem in the United States that is expected to become worse in the coming decades. As of 2023, around one third of adults in the United States were considered obese. Obesity is slightly more prevalent among women in the United States, and rates of obesity differ greatly by region and state. For example, in West Virginia, around 41 percent of adults are obese, compared to 25 percent in Colorado. However, although Colorado is the state with the lowest prevalence of obesity among adults, a quarter of the adult population being obese is still shockingly high. The health impacts of being obese Obesity increases the risk of developing a number of health conditions including high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer. It is no coincidence that the states with the highest rates of hypertension are also among the states with the highest prevalence of obesity. West Virginia currently has the third highest rate of hypertension in the U.S. with 45 percent of adults with the condition. It is also no coincidence that as rates of obesity in the United States have increased so have rates of diabetes. As of 2022, around 8.4 percent of adults in the United States had been diagnosed with diabetes, compared to six percent in the year 2000. Obesity can be prevented through a healthy diet and regular exercise, which also increases overall health and longevity.

United States US: Prevalence of Overweight: Weight for Height: Female: % of Children Under 5 data was reported at 6.900 % in 2012. This records an increase from the previous number of 6.400 % for 2009. United States US: Prevalence of Overweight: Weight for Height: Female: % of Children Under 5 data is updated yearly, averaging 6.900 % from Dec 1991 (Median) to 2012, with 6 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 8.700 % in 2005 and a record low of 5.100 % in 1991. United States US: Prevalence of Overweight: Weight for Height: Female: % of Children Under 5 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Health Statistics. Prevalence of overweight, female, is the percentage of girls under age 5 whose weight for height is more than two standard deviations above the median for the international reference population of the corresponding age as established by the WHO's new child growth standards released in 2006.; ; World Health Organization, Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition. Country-level data are unadjusted data from national surveys, and thus may not be comparable across countries.; Linear mixed-effect model estimates; Estimates of overweight children are also from national survey data. Once considered only a high-income economy problem, overweight children have become a growing concern in developing countries. Research shows an association between childhood obesity and a high prevalence of diabetes, respiratory disease, high blood pressure, and psychosocial and orthopedic disorders (de Onis and Blössner 2003). Childhood obesity is associated with a higher chance of obesity, premature death, and disability in adulthood. In addition to increased future risks, obese children experience breathing difficulties and increased risk of fractures, hypertension, early markers of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and psychological effects. Children in low- and middle-income countries are more vulnerable to inadequate nutrition before birth and in infancy and early childhood. Many of these children are exposed to high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, calorie-dense, micronutrient-poor foods, which tend be lower in cost than more nutritious foods. These dietary patterns, in conjunction with low levels of physical activity, result in sharp increases in childhood obesity, while under-nutrition continues

In 2023, it was estimated that around 37 percent of adults with an annual income of less than 15,000 U.S. dollars were obese, compared to 29 percent of those with an annual income of 75,000 dollars or more. This statistic shows the percentage of U.S. adults who were obese in 2023, by income.

United States US: Prevalence of Overweight: Weight for Height: % of Children Under 5 data was reported at 6.000 % in 2012. This records a decrease from the previous number of 7.800 % for 2009. United States US: Prevalence of Overweight: Weight for Height: % of Children Under 5 data is updated yearly, averaging 7.000 % from Dec 1991 (Median) to 2012, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 8.100 % in 2005 and a record low of 5.400 % in 1991. United States US: Prevalence of Overweight: Weight for Height: % of Children Under 5 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Health Statistics. Prevalence of overweight children is the percentage of children under age 5 whose weight for height is more than two standard deviations above the median for the international reference population of the corresponding age as established by the WHO's new child growth standards released in 2006.; ; UNICEF, WHO, World Bank: Joint child malnutrition estimates (JME). Aggregation is based on UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank harmonized dataset (adjusted, comparable data) and methodology.; Linear mixed-effect model estimates; Estimates of overweight children are also from national survey data. Once considered only a high-income economy problem, overweight children have become a growing concern in developing countries. Research shows an association between childhood obesity and a high prevalence of diabetes, respiratory disease, high blood pressure, and psychosocial and orthopedic disorders (de Onis and Blössner 2003). Childhood obesity is associated with a higher chance of obesity, premature death, and disability in adulthood. In addition to increased future risks, obese children experience breathing difficulties and increased risk of fractures, hypertension, early markers of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and psychological effects. Children in low- and middle-income countries are more vulnerable to inadequate nutrition before birth and in infancy and early childhood. Many of these children are exposed to high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, calorie-dense, micronutrient-poor foods, which tend be lower in cost than more nutritious foods. These dietary patterns, in conjunction with low levels of physical activity, result in sharp increases in childhood obesity, while under-nutrition continues

West Virginia, Mississippi, and Arkansas are the U.S. states with the highest percentage of their population who are obese. The states with the lowest percentage of their population who are obese include Colorado, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. Obesity in the United States Obesity is a growing problem in many countries around the world, but the United States has the highest rate of obesity among all OECD countries. The prevalence of obesity in the United States has risen steadily over the previous two decades, with no signs of declining. Obesity in the U.S. is more common among women than men, and overweight and obesity rates are higher among African Americans than any other race or ethnicity. Causes and health impacts Obesity is most commonly the result of a combination of poor diet, overeating, physical inactivity, and a genetic susceptibility. Obesity is associated with various negative health impacts, including an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, certain types of cancer, and diabetes type 2. As of 2022, around 8.4 percent of the U.S. population had been diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes is currently the eighth leading cause of death in the United States.

In 2024, around 40 percent of U.S. men reported weighing 200 pounds or more. This statistic shows the average self-reported weight among U.S. men from 1990 to 2024.

Maternal obesity has been associated with a higher risk of pregnancy-related complications in mothers and offspring; however, effective interventions have not yet been developed. We tested two common interventions, calorie restriction and pravastatin administration, during pregnancy in a rhesus macaque model with the hypothesis that these interventions would normalize metabolic dysregulation in pregnant mothers leading to an improvement in infant metabolic and cognitive/social development. A total of 19 obese mothers were assigned to either one of the two intervention groups (n=5 for calorie restriction; n=7 for pravastatin) or an obese control group (n=7) with no intervention, and maternal gestational samples and postnatal infant samples were compared with lean control mothers (n=6). Gestational calorie restriction normalized one-carbon metabolism dysregulation in obese mothers but altered energy metabolism in their offspring. Although administration of pravastatin during pregnancy tended to normalize blood cholesterol in the mothers, it potentially impacted the gut microbiome and kidney function of their offspring. In the offspring, both calorie restriction and pravastatin administration during pregnancy tended to normalize the activity of AMPK in the brain at 6 months, and while results of the Visual Paired-Comparison test, which measures infant recognition memory, were not significantly impacted by either of the interventions, gestational pravastatin administration, but not calorie restriction, tended to normalize anxiety assessed by the Human Intruder test. Although the two interventions tested in a non-human primate model led to some improvements in metabolism and/or infant brain development, negative impacts were also found in both mothers and infants. Our study emphasizes the importance of assessing gestational interventions for maternal obesity on both maternal and offspring long-term outcomes. Methods Study population Pregnant female rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) from an indoor breeding colony at the California National Primate Research Center with appropriate social behavior and previous successful pregnancies were enrolled. Animal handling was approved by the UC Davis Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) (#19299). A qualitative real-time PCR assay (Jimenez & Tarantal, 2003) was used to identify mothers with male fetuses to include in this study. Since obesity is defined as subjects with body fat above 30% for women, according to guidelines from the American Society of Bariatric Physicians, American Medical Association, and in some publications (Okorodudu et al., 2010; Shah & Braverman, 2012), a Body Condition Score (BCS) of 3.5 (32.8 % body fat on average (Summers et al., 2012)) was used as the cutoff. Therefore, mothers with BCS of 3.5 and above were categorized as obese. Obese mothers were randomly assigned to the Obese Control (OC) group, OR group (received calorie Restriction), or OP group (received Pravastatin). Mothers with BCS of 2.5 and below were assigned to the Lean Control (LC) group. The unbalanced sample size was because some mothers were removed from the analyses due to fetal deaths for unknown reasons, misidentification of a female fetus, different timing for study enrollment, or technical issues upon collecting samples. The number of animals was six for the LC, seven for the OC, five for the OR, and seven for the OP groups. Feeding, rearing, and interventions Adult female animals were provided monkey diet (High Protein Primate Diet Jumbo #5047; LabDiet, St. Louis, MO, USA) twice a day between 6–9 am and 1–3 pm. The calories were provided as 56% from carbohydrates, 30% from protein, and 13% from. Mothers in the LC, OC, and OP groups were fed nine biscuits twice a day once pregnancy was confirmed. Mothers in the OR group received a restricted supply of food once the pregnancy was detected and was maintained throughout pregnancy. The food restriction was set such that the average total weight increase would be 8% body weight from the last day before conception because the recommended total weight gain in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters is 5-9 kg for the average US woman with obesity who weighs 80 kg and is 1.6 m in height (Body Mass Index of 30), according to the Institute of Medicine 2009 guidelines (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2009). During nursing of infants older than 4 months, all mothers were provided twelve biscuits. Fresh produce was provided biweekly, and water was provided ad libitum for all mothers. Mothers in the OP group were given pravastatin sodium (ApexBio Technology, Houston, TX, USA) at 20 mg/kg body weight prepared in a neutralized syrup (20 mg/mL sodium bicarbonate dissolved in a fruit-flavored syrup (Torani, San Leandro, CA, USA)) once a day from the time pregnancy was confirmed until delivery. The caloric value of the administration was made so as not to influence body weight or skew nutritional value of the diet among all treatment groups. Both interventions were applied only during gestation. Although most mothers were allowed to deliver naturally, cesarean delivery was performed for fetal indications when recommended by veterinarians (2 for each of the LC and OC groups, and 1 for the OP group). These mothers did not accept their infant following birth, so foster mothers were provided. Sample Collection and pre-processing prior to sample storage The animal caretakers and researchers who collected samples were blinded for group assignment by coding all animals by IDs. The collected biological samples were randomized by using random numbers and the group assignment was blinded during the data collection. Both mothers (during pregnancy) and infants were weighed every week. One day before sample collection, food was removed 30 min after the afternoon feeding, and biological samples were collected prior to the morning feeding. To collect biological samples, animals were anesthetized using 5–30 mg/kg ketamine or 5–8 mg/kg telazol. Both maternal and infant blood was collected using 5 mL lavender top (EDTA) tubes (Monoject, Cardinal Health, Dublin, OH, USA) and urine was collected from the bladder by ultrasound-guided transabdominal cystotomy using a 22-gauge needle and stored in a 15 mL Falcon tube. A placental sample was collected at GD150 transabdominally under ultrasound guidance using an 18-gauge needle attached to a sterile syringe. Sample processing was as previously described in (Hasegawa et al., 2022). Necropsy was conducted between 9:30 am–1:30 pm. First, infants at the age of PD180 were fasted and anesthetized with ketamine, and plasma and urine were collected. Then, euthanasia was performed with 120 mg/kg pentobarbital, followed by heparin injection, clamping of the descending aorta, and flushing with saline until clear. The kidney and brain (amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and prefrontal cortex) were collected, weighed, and immediately frozen on dry ice or liquid nitrogen to store at -80 °C until further analyses. Metabolite extraction and analysis by 1H NMR, and measurement of insulin, cholesterol, cytokine, and cortisol Detailed procedures were previously described (Hasegawa et al., 2022). Briefly, plasma and urine samples were filtered using Amicon Ultra Centrifugal Filter (3k molecular weight cutoff; Millipore, Billerica, MA, USA), and the supernatant was used for analysis. For both the placental and brain tissue samples, polar metabolites were extracted using our previously reported method (Hasegawa et al., 2020). A total of 180 μL of sample (tissue extract or filtered urine or serum) was transferred to 3 mm Bruker NMR tubes (Bruker, Billerica, MA, USA). Within 24 h of sample preparation, all 1H NMR spectra were acquired using the noesypr1d pulse sequence on a Bruker Avance 600 MHz NMR spectrometer (Bruker, Billerica, MA, USA) (O’Sullivan et al., 2013). Chenomx NMRSuite (version 8.1, Chenomx Inc., Edmonton, Canada) (Weljie et al., 2006) was used to identify and quantify metabolites. Heparin-treated plasma samples were used to measure insulin and 17 cytokines and chemokines (hs-CRP, Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, IFN-γ, TNF-α, transforming growth factor-α, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, macrophage inflammatory protein-1β (MIP-1β), and interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra), IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12/23 p40, IL-13, IL-15, and IL-17A) using a multiplex Bead-Based Kit (Millipore) on a Bio-Plex 100 (Bio-rad, Hercules, CA) following the manufacturer’s protocol. For each sample, a minimum of fifty beads per region were collected and analyzed with Bio-Plex Manager software using a 5-point standard curve with immune marker quantities extrapolated based on the standard curve. Two samples were removed for analysis of TNF-α and IL-1ra as technical errors (both from Animal ID 1132103: 895.2 and 1115.1 pg/mL at gestational days (GD) 90; 510.8 and 617.2 pg/mL at GD120, respectively). Plasma cholesterol level was measured by Clinical Laboratory Diagnostic Product (OSR6116) on Beckman Coulter AU480 (Beckman Coulter, Brea, CA). Infant plasma cortisol level at PD110 was assessed as previously described (Vandeleest et al., 2019; Walker et al., 2018). In short, infants were transferred to a test room at 9 am and blood was drawn at 11 am (Sample 1), followed by another blood collection at 4 pm (Sample 2) and intramuscular injection of 500 μg/kg dexamethasone (Dex) (American Regent Laboratories, Inc., Shirley, NY). On the next day, a blood sample was collected at 8:30 am (Sample 3), and then 2.5 IU of adrenocorticotropic hormone (Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Rancho Cucamonga, CA) was injected intramuscularly. The last blood was collected (Sample 4) 30 min after adrenocorticotropic hormone injection. The collected blood samples were processed and stored, and cortisol concentration was assessed by a chemiluminescent assay on the ADVIA Centaur CP platform

In Mississippi, over seven out of ten adults were reported to be either overweight or obese in 2018, making it the leading U.S. state that year. Other prominent states, in terms of overweight and obesity, included Arkansas in fourth, Oklahoma in seventh, and Louisiana in tenth place.

Corpulence per state

When it comes to obesity, specifically, percentages were still very high for certain states. Almost forty percent of West Virginia’s population was obese in 2018. Colorado, Hawaii, and California were some of the healthier states that year, with obesity rates between 22 and 25 percent. The average for the country itself stood at just over 31 percent.

Obesity-related health problems

Being obese can lead to various health-related complications, such as diabetes and diseases of the heart. In 2017, almost 22 people per 100,000 died of diabetes mellitus in the United States. In the same year, roughly 165 per 100,000 Americans died of heart disease. While the number of deaths caused by heart disease has decreased significantly over the past sixty to seventy years, it is still one of the leading causes of death in the country.

The late Quaternary of North America was marked by prominent ecological changes, including the end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinction, the spread of human settlements, and the rise of agriculture. Here we examine the mechanistic reasons for temporal changes in mammal species association and body size during this time period. Building upon the co-occurrence results from Lyons et al. (2016) – wherein each species pair was classified as spatially aggregated, segregated, or random – we examined body mass differences (BMD) between each species pair for each association type and time period (Late Pleistocene: 40,000 14C - 11,700 14C ybp, Holocene: 11,700 14C - 50 ybp, and Modern: 50 - 0 yrs). In the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, the BMD of both aggregated and segregated species pairs was significantly smaller than the BMD of random pairs. These results are consistent with environmental filtering and competition as important drivers of community structure in both time periods. Modern assemblages showed a breakdown between BMD and co-occurrence patterns: the average BMD of aggregated, segregated, and random species pairs did not differ from each other. Collectively, these results indicate that the late Quaternary mammalian extinctions not only eliminated many large- bodied species but were followed by a re-organization of communities that altered patterns of species coexistence and associated differences in body size.

Methods Dataset

We analyzed a dataset of pairwise associations produced in Lyons et al. (2016). In this work by Lyons and colleagues, species associations were evaluated using species-by-site presence-absence matrices from 369 localities across North America. The dataset covers three different time periods: Late Pleistocene (40,000 14C ybp to 11,700 14C ybp), Holocene (11,700 14C ybp to 50 ybp) and Modern (50 – 0 ybp). Lyons et al. (2016) generated this co-occurrence data based on a collection of datasets known to include reliable data to minimize bias related to taxonomic resolution and taxa misidentification. The studied assemblages consisted of lists of species in a locality. Information about dataset collection and preparation for the analysis in Lyons et al. (2016) is fully detailed in Appendix 1.

For each species in Lyons et al. (2016), estimates of average body mass in grams were extracted from the MOM (Mass of Mammals) database (Smith et al. 2003) version 3. For extant species, estimates were averaged across sexes and species’ geographic ranges. For extinct mammals, the MOM database compiled body mass estimates from the primary and secondary literature, and from regressions using tooth measurements. Body mass data were log10-transformed prior to analyses. BMDs were then calculated between each pair of North American mammal species. While some species’ average body masses might have changed through time, our log-transformation makes it unlikely that results would be substantially affected; temporal changes in average body mass would need to change across an order of magnitude to impact our results.

Analyses

PAIRS analyses

Lyons et al. (2016) performed the original evaluation of pairwise co-occurrence, whose results form the basis of our analysis. More details about their analysis can be found in Appendix 1, but the general logic of the method will be described here. Briefly, to determine whether each pair of species was aggregated, segregated, or randomly associated for a given time period, a co-occurrence metric (i.e., C-score) was calculated for each pair of species in a species-by-site presence-absence matrix. A null distribution of C-scores was then generated by shuffling matrix elements, while preserving row and column totals (i.e., the “fixed-fixed” algorithm). The observed C-score was then compared to the null distribution to determine whether a given species pair was significantly aggregated, segregated, or random. These analyses were conducted using the software application PAIRS version 1.0 (Ulrich 2008). Overall, there were 25,459 species pairs across the three time intervals (Late Pleistocene, Holocene and Modern). Table 2 summarizes the results in Lyons et al. (2016). Previous research (Lyons et al. 2016; Tóth et al. 2019) has shown that these types of co-occurrence analyses are robust to differences in collection mode, temporal grain, spatial or temporal extent, taphonomic bias, taxonomic resolution, and sampling biases.

Lyons, S. K., K. L. Amatangelo, A. K. Behrensmeyer, A. Bercovici, J. L. Blois, M. Davis, W. A. DiMichele, A. Du, J. T. Eronen, J. Tyler Faith, G. R. Graves, N. Jud, C. Labandeira, C. V. Looy, B. McGill, J. H. Miller, D. Patterson, S. Pineda-Munoz, R. Potts, B. Riddle, R. Terry, A. Tóth, W. Ulrich, A. Villaseñor, S. Wing, H. Anderson, J. Anderson, D. Waller, and N. J. Gotelli. 2016. Holocene shifts in the assembly of plant and animal communities implicate human impacts. Nature 529:80-83.

Smith, F. A., S. K. Lyons, S. K. M. Ernest, K. E. Jones, D. M. Kaufman, T. Dayan, P. A. Marquet, J. H. Brown, and J. P. Haskell. 2003. Body mass of late Quaternary mammals. Ecology 84:3403-3403.

Ulrich, W. 2008. Pairs—a FORTRAN program for studying pair-wise species associations in ecological matrices. Version 1.0. http://www.keib.umk.pl/pairs/?lang=en.

In 2023, Black adults had the highest obesity rates of any race or ethnicity in the United States, followed by American Indians/Alaska Natives and Hispanics. As of that time, around 42 percent of all Black adults were obese. Asians/Pacific Islanders had by far the lowest obesity rates. Obesity in the United States Obesity is a present and growing problem in the United States. An astonishing 33 percent of the adult population in the U.S. is now considered obese. Obesity rates can vary substantially by state, with around 41 percent of the adult population in West Virginia reportedly obese, compared to 25 percent of adults in Colorado. The states with the highest rates of obesity include West Virginia, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Diabetes Being overweight and obese can lead to a number of health problems, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Being overweight or obese is one of the most common causes of type 2 diabetes, a condition in which the body does not use insulin properly, causing blood sugar levels to rise. It is estimated that just over eight percent of adults in the U.S. have been diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes is now the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for three percent of all deaths.

Average effect of treatment on the treated (ATT) for dietary supplement intake on BMI.

In 2022, the U.S. states with the highest rates of obesity among women were Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi. At that time, almost 43 percent of women in Tennessee were considered obese. The states with the highest rates of obesity among men are West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Obesity: Women vs. men As of 2022, women in the United States had slightly higher rates of obesity than men. At that time, around 34.1 percent of women were considered obese, compared to 32.6 percent of men. Rates of obesity among both men and women are higher in the United States than any other OECD country, with high-calorie diets, often from fast food and sugary drinks, and large food portion sizes being partly to blame. In 2023, the mean self-reported weight among men in the United States was 199 pounds, while women reported weighing an average of 164 pounds. Which state is the most obese? As of 2022, West Virginia had the highest prevalence of adult obesity in the United States, with around 41 percent of the population considered obese. Following West Virginia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, had some of the highest rates of obesity in the country. Colorado had the lowest share of adults who were obese at that time, but still, a quarter of adults in the state were obese. West Virginia is also the state with the highest prevalence of obesity among high school students, with 27 percent of high schoolers considered obese in 2021. Obesity in childhood is associated with obesity as adults, as well as mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.

Baseline characteristics among 809 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Argentina.

In 2024, the mean average weight reported by men was 195 pounds, while the mean average weight for women was 164 pounds. This statistic shows the mean self-reported weight among U.S. adults from 1990 to 2024, by gender, in pounds.

Percent of reponses and parent-child agreement to the survey questions by parental and child BMI classification (N = 488).

Roughly 15 percent of U.S. high school students from grades 9 to 12, across all genders and ethnicities, were obese between 2016 and 2017. On average, African and Hispanic students struggled more with obesity than white students. Over 22 percent of male students with a Hispanic background were reported to be obese.

Prevalence among adults

Obesity is a growing problem among all age groups in the United States. Among American adults aged 20 and over, obesity rates have risen considerably since 1997. By 2018, roughly 12 percent more adults were obese, compared to 21 years earlier.

Fast food industry

Unhealthy ingredients, larger portions, and lower cost are some of the reasons why fast food easily leads to obesity in the United States. Between 2004 and 2018, U.S. consumer spending in quick-service restaurants has increased by approximately 37.5 percent. Examples of leading restaurant chains within this sector, in terms of company value, are McDonald’s, KFC, and Domino’s Pizza.

In 2022, men aged 55 to 64 years had an average body mass index (BMI) of 29 kg/m2 and women in the same age group had a BMI of 28.8 kg/m2, the highest mean BMI across all the age groups. Apart from individuals aged 16 to 24 years, every demographic in England had an average BMI which is classified as overweight.An increasing problem It is shown that the mean BMI of individuals for both men and women has been generally increasing year-on-year in England. The numbers show in England, as in the rest of the United Kingdom (UK), that the prevalence of obesity is an increasing health problem. The prevalence of obesity in women in England has increased by around nine percent since 2000, while for men the share of obesity has increased by six percent. Strain on the health service Being overweight increases the chances of developing serious health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancers. In the period 2019/20, England experienced over 10.7 thousand hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of obesity, whereas in 2002/03 this figure was only 1,275 admissions. Furthermore, the number of bariatric surgeries taking place in England, particularly among women, has significantly increased over the last fifteen years. In 2019/20, over 5.4 thousand bariatric surgery procedures were performed on women and approximately 1.3 thousand were carried out on men.